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current Monday
Report below!
This week's report by Wild Bill Blackolive!
Letter From A Chained Man
In strange times the artist becomes warrior or is no count. I have a couple of
heroes, writers, they are in US prisons. The US has the most prisoners of
any country, one quarter of the Earth’s prisoners. This is war.
One hero is the Poet of Death Row, Reginald S. Lewis (whose writing can be
seen at www.ccadp.org/reginaldlewis.htm), whom I have lately been in
correspondence with. He is about 50 years old, been in there over twenty
years. Maybe he can legally get out, he says. We shall see. His is the spirit.
Cassidy Wheeler is in his mid-twenties, doing seven or eight. He is there for
stealing socks, for his feet. I figure both my heroes are repeat offenders.
Cassidy is white and Reginald is black. Cassidy will not shut up about cops,
Nazis, racists, and in these past couple years in contact with me they keep
transferring him, four times by now, because of his influence. He demands
zines for his “comrades.” The keepers have tried to get him killed by
skinheads. I inquired, are you a crazed hundred-twenty pounder or a bold
two-twenty pounder, and he replied that he is closer to a crazed two
hundred pounder. His saga is movie material. My zines and letters to
Cassidy get frequently turned back in idiot excuse and I brought in Oregon
ACLU, who have twice called me then visited him, and I contemplate that
my name in the Oregon prisons, if not even all US prison system in its web,
is connected with ACLU and Communism and Anarchism – Cassidy is loudly
an anarchist. And this past year a couple FBI entered his cell, interrogated
him about, said these poor bastards, his name turning up in al Qaeda
material in Poland. Our hero was in form, frightened these louts, telling them
he knew nothing about who killed Jack Kennedy or Jimmy Hoffa either, and
the louts scurried. I sent Cassidy my latest zine (Last Laugh & Quiet Days in
Saint-Denis – where his letters appear) and the keepers stamped it Over
One Forth Inch Thick and sent it back to me, and I have used this second
route Cassidy has provided, and I bothered Oregon ACLU more, and we
carry on.
“A chained man need only shut his eyes
To make the world explode.”
(Octavio Paz)
Dear Wild Bill,
Hello again my friend, and how has that Texas spring time
been treating you so far? I am currently in possession of
your letters of 4/4 and 4/23 (along with a mail violation
notice informing you to never dare tamper with the Amer.
Dept. of Corrections postage monopoly!) and once again it is
a pleasure hearing from you. Need I even explain once again
why my missive is long delayed? Yes, there is the normal
level of scrutiny deserving of such a dangerous radical as I
(!), but recent events have added a while new layer of shit
to an already overflowing pile…Care to hear another super-
max sob story? About 6 weeks ago, a female guard was held
hostage by a repeat rapist that was released from the
lockdown unit I’m in only days earlier, after 3-and-a-half
years on 24-hour lockdown. That same day, 2 guards were
(allegedly) shot in the face by homemade “blow darts” soaked
(allegedly) in several blood borne pathogens, by 2 men in
another section. The inevitable backlash created from these
2 (seemingly unrelated) attacks on their fellow swine was
swift and severe: before we even knew what had happened,
every single cell was being stormed (one by one) by 25
guards in full riot gear (helmets, masks, shock shields,
“pepper ball” guns, etc…), who confiscated every single item
of personal and state issued property…leaving us in bare
cells and wearing only our shorts! Now, you have to remember
who my friends and neighbors in this super-max security unit
are: gangsters, killers, prison organizers, and assorted
crazies that have very little to lose and spend years in
tiny cages, plotting their revenge on society. So it’s not
surprising that as soon as we had a moment to process the
events (and yell to each other along the line), all the hell
that could possibly be raised in our position was unleashed:
plumbing was broken, fire sprinklers were set off, windows
were covered with fuck knows what (!), and an ear-splitting
roar was generated as we all yelled and kicked our doors in
unison! About 35 of us were beat up, pepper sprayed, and
dumped naked in “water control cells” (1 flush/15 second
water spray every hour!), where I sat for nearly 30 days
(and some are still in, with no end in sight). Since all
this went down, there has been a steady stream of mysterious
rule changes, lost mail, missed meals, etc. that seems
calculated to drive us to our breaking point, at which point
they can justify their current level of repression and kick
the shit out of us again to boot. I personally am not going
to give them the chance again if I can help it…unless they
are seriously hurting/fucking over someone, I am going to
keep my protest in the realm of letters and books and
publications like I have been doing for the last 4 years I’
ve been locked up. So that’s the latest episode from the
inner gulag, nothing added or dramatized, just the facts as
I experienced them 1st hand. I wonder sometimes what the
folx who read these letters in “Last Laugh” are thinking of
me…that I am a whiner that should just “buck up and take my
punishment”? Or maybe that I am exaggerating and prisons are
really “country clubs” (like Republican politicians are fond
of saying)? I hope not, but not because I care what anyone
thinks of me anymore (that stopped years ago & it suits me
just fine!), but rather because they probably do not realize
how close they are every day to winding up in the cell next
to me. Don’t forget, Bill, that the state needs the prison
block just as much as it needs the factory floor or the
bombs killing Arab children in the desert…it’s all just
business as usual, and they don’t give a shit who dies or
wears a number, as long as there is slave labor and cheap
gas for their SUVs! OK Bill, I leave you now…Please do write
soon and tell me an LSD story!
In solidarity,
Cassidy Wheeler
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Wild Bill Blackolive publishes the zine Last Laugh. His classic novel,
Tales from the Texas Gang, will soon be re-released by ULA Press.
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